Moving central air vent near the ceiling for better cooling?

[Briannadee]

I have an old cape cod style house, a tri level with the master bedroom alone on the top floor... After moving in and installing central air into the existing forced air ductwork, we quickly noticed that it was 7-10 degrees warmer up in our bedroom, so we made efforts to improve cooling upstairs:

1- we got a return vent installed in the bedroom, which helped to keep it 6-7 degrees warmer upstairs
2- got some energy efficient curtains to block out sunlight, it is less warm by the windows
3- because of ice damming, we got the entire roofline insulated with sprayfoam, so it is always the same temperature in the attic as it is outside

It is now 3-4 degrees (depending on how hot it is outside) warmer in our bedroom, a big improvement!!

I'm almost satisfied! So I have a question! Our room has crawl spaces on the sides of the room, so the wall goes at an angle halfway up the wall, almost looking like an attic room... The return vent is highest up on the wall as It can be, before the wall begins to slant... On the other side of the room, there's a supply vent on the very bottom of the wall, and we have to use a tiny fan to push the cool air coming in, up to the ceiling fan to circulate it... Since I can get to the crawl space easily and the ductwork, would it make much difference to move the supply vent up higher on the wall? The highest it can go is halfway up the wall before it starts to slant

Would that help? I'm thinking since cold air falls, it might be better to move the supply vent up a few feet, at the same height that the return vent is? Any ideas or thoughts are welcome thanks! If course I would hire an hvac company to do this

[Briannadee]

**other notes- we have closed most supply vents on 1st floor, problem is it freezes out our 2nd floor, and them our bedroom on the "3rd" floor is warm again, I'm afraid of closing vents more on the 2nd floor as I don't want to kill our furnace... we also have return vents covered on 1st floor and 1 covered on 2nd floor to get the bedroom return vent to suck a normal amount of air to work, ALL instructed by our hvac company and it has helped tremendously... Without covering some return vents, the return vent in our bedroom won't suck any air

[rickboggs]

I bet your tstat is on a lower floor (1st or 2nd). The cold air falling and the hot air rising is called the stack effect. The tstat being on a lower floor has no idea what the temperature is up there on the 3rd floor. You can mix the air by running fan continuous, kinda like swirling your ice tea to get the sugar of the bottom, or install a damper system.

[BaldLoonie]

Cooling vents low wall are terrible, the cold air hugs the floor. So it you can raise it up, that will help too. Or put a deflector on the outlet to blow the air up. Got a ceiling fan?

[Briannadee]

Cooling vents low wall are terrible, the cold air hugs the floor. So it you can raise it up, that will help too. Or put a deflector on the outlet to blow the air up. Got a ceiling fan?

We have a ceiling fan we keep running, we also placed a small fan on the floor and angled it up to the ceiling fan which definitely helped! And the air coming into the room is pretty fast! But do you think it would be a problem with the location of the return vent? They are both on the same wall, but 13ft from each other, it's a 13x13 room and supply vent is 4x10

[Briannadee]

I bet your tstat is on a lower floor (1st or 2nd). The cold air falling and the hot air rising is called the stack effect. The tstat being on a lower floor has no idea what the temperature is up there on the 3rd floor. You can mix the air by running fan continuous, kinda like swirling your ice tea to get the sugar of the bottom, or install a damper system.

Yep you're right, the thermostat is on the first floor! The fan is on the "on" position when we are home, ill look into a damper system too

[energy_rater_La]

"Our room has crawl spaces on the sides of the room, so the wall goes at an angle halfway up the wall, almost looking like an attic room."

was this area spray foamed also?
just curious.

[Briannadee]

"Our room has crawl spaces on the sides of the room, so the wall goes at an angle halfway up the wall, almost looking like an attic room."

was this area spray foamed also?
just curious.

Yes, the outside wall in the crawl space is insulated, we had some mold growth from ice damming especially in the crawl space that the duct work goes through, it used to be scortching hot in there and now it's whatever the outside temp is, so I think that's good for the supply vent carrying cool air!.. Then the inside wall of the crawl space has fiberglass that isn't very effective in the past